McArdle, Michael J.

English

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DePaul Law Review Volume 16 Issue 1 Fall-Winter 1966 Article 26 Capote: In Cold Blood Michael J. McArdle Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review Recommended Citation Michael J. McArdle, Capote: In Cold Blood, 16 DePaul L. Rev. 274 (1966) Available at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/law-review/vol16/iss1/26 This Book Reviews is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Law at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in DePaul Law Review by an authorized editor of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact digitalservices@depaul.edu. DE PAUL LAW REVIEWthe analysis of the Commission's investigation and findings as presented by Mr.Epstein, that this taste will whet the appetite and encourage all to read Inquest.RicHARD C. GROLL*Assistant Professor of Law, De Paul University; J.D. cum laude, Loyola University,LL.M., Northwestern University.In Cold Blood. By TRUMAN CAPOTE. New York: Random House Publishers,Inc. 1966. Pp. 343. $5.95.At this stage of the game, no reviewer of In Cold Blood need worry aboutrevealing too much of the plot. After the book was initially serialized in theNew Yorker last fall, it was published in full-length form and was extensivelyreviewed. Newsweek devoted a cover story to it, as did Life a lengthy illus-trated article. A paper-back release is planned, fifteen translations are beingmade, and the movie rights have already been sold. The New York Timesestimates that the author will glean upwards of $2,000,000 for his efforts.The story opens one Saturday in November of 1959, when the Clutter familyof Holcomb, Kansas,-a typical family in a typical small farm town-werebrutally murdered by two sadistic young parolees. There was no motive forthe murders and almost no clues. Shortly thereafter Truman Capote arrivedon the scene to cover the story for the New Yorker and painstakingly began col-lecting every scrap of information about the Clutter family that he couldelicit from the shocked townspeople. Seven weeks thereafter the killers wereapprehended, and Capote extended his in-depth coverage to them and continuedtaking what would eventually amount to 6,000 pages of notes. By the timethe two killers were executed some five years and five months later, he hadspent hundreds of hours in their company and had talked to just about everyliving person who had ever been closely connected with them or theirvictims.Capote skillfully draws in-depth character portraits of the main protagonists:Herbert William Clutter, the little loved though most respected citizen, apious Methodist and prominent Republican who had little regard for thoseof other beliefs; his wife Bonnie, a semi-invalid subject to nervous depression;their fifteen-year-old son Kenyon, a quiet but intelligent youngster; theirseventeen-year-old daughter Nancy, charming, enthusiastic, innocent, every-one's favorite; Richard Hickock, a resentful petty criminal, bright but emo-tionally twisted and sadistic; and Perry Smith, whose arrest record beganwhen he was only eight, with a deformed body, an almost unbelievably miser-able childhood, and a desire to "make somebody pay"-all are unforgettablyetched in the reader's memory. Capote also traces the killers' month of aim-less wanderings, in stolen cars or hitchhiked rides, to Mexico, Florida, andLas Vegas, a trail of cheap hotels, bad checks, and sexual fantasies. Equally welldone are those whom the killers meet-a seventy-year-old blonde in high-heeled gold leather sandals in a rundown Las Vegas motel, a twelve-year-oldboy who is walking through the South with his dying grandfather, a travelingsalesman whom they casually plan to kill but who is spared by chance. Somescenes are indelible, such as Richard Hickock swerving out of his way toBOOK REVIEWSrun over a stray dog because he liked hearing the splat, or the two killersroaring with laughters as they clean their blood-stained clothes. Other sceneshave a certain poignant realism, such as the description of the Clutter houseitself and the community in which it stands. Sometimes, but not often, theart becomes artful, and Capote plays for pathos. But it is his achievement thathe elevates this sordid tragedy to an artistic level. One thing is certain, andthat is that the book has impact. The reconstructed private conversations ofthe killers ring chillingly true, as do the direct quotations: "I thought he wasa very nice man. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut histhroat." The documentary style of accumulating objective detail adds muchto a sense of personal presence that surpasses realism. For this is no merecollection of newspaper stories and biographical sketches. Capote is a skillfulstoryteller who uses time sequence arranging to heighten and maintain theatmosphere of suspense by flashbacks and by switching from the uneventfulwork of the Clutters or the routine of the police investigation to the terriblefantasy world of the killers.Much has been written about In Cold Blood, and most of it has been lauda-tory. However, some critics question the author's integrity and motive re-garding his presentation of the various stages of the process of criminal justicefrom the commission of the offense through the investigation to sentencingand execution. The ability and competency of the criminal defense at trialand post trial proceedings has also been questioned and defended.' Whatevermerit this criticism holds it is not competent to the work itself, except forimpressions created in the mind of the reader. The author has contributedto the growing controversy stemming from the Escobedo2 and Miranda cases;the decisions' assailers, including Mr. Capote in his testimony before theSenate Judiciary Committee, contend that the book portends a graphic ex-ample of the necessity of confessions for effective law enforcement (no mat-ter how obtained?). Proponents of these decisions argue that the Clutterfamily murders would have eventually been solved by the process of elimina-tion and tenacious investigation.My personal opinion is that the book is a masterpiece, and reading it is aprofoundly moving experience, although not a particularly enjoyable one.The single word that perhaps best describes the book is "disturbing," in thesame sense as is applicable to an obvious parallel, Crime and Punishment, awork of similar intensity and sadness. In his Commonweal review of the book,Bernard McCabe expresses his opinion that the whole effect is voyeur andthat Capote, very efficiently, makes us part of the gaping crowd. There maybe much truth in this analysis. The opening scenes describes in detail thepink-and-white bedroom in which teenage Nancy will die, begging for mercy,a morbid and pitiful scene. When the mother of one of the killers (whosehusband is dying of cancer) is led weeping from the courtroom in which herson is soon to be condemned, a reporter digs out the poor woman's excru-ciatingly painful childhood memories, which also are reported in detail. One1 See: Jenkins, The Hickock and Smith Case: Was Justice Done, 4 AM. CRIM.LAW Q. 180 (1966).2 Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1963).8 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).DE PAUL LAW REVIEWis reminded of those photographs of the Nazi death-camp atrocities-they aresickening, yet they have a strange, somewhat frightening fascination. Thebook can be a totally unnerving vicarious experience for the squeamish.MICHAEL J. McARDLE*Member of Illinois Bar. LL.B., De Paul University, 1961.How to Avoid Probate. By NORMAN F. DACEY. New York: Crown Publishers,Inc., 1965. Pp. 341. $4.95.Reference to the "legal racket" and other similar disparaging remarks failto increase Mr. Dacey's stature as an author or an estate planner. The vastmajority of lawyers, doctors, teachers and other professionals are highlycompetent and respected although there may be a few who fail to maintainthe professional and ethical standards expected of them. Confronted withunsatisfactory medical advice from one doctor, most people would visitanother. Any suggestion that they read a medical book to diagnose and curetheir own illness would be met with doubt and derision. Yet, Norman F.Dacey advocates that his elementary notebook of forms and inadequate ex-planations provides a sufficient basis from which to plan an estate for thecare of one's family and the protection of assets accumulated over a lifetime.The omissions and inadequacies of this book are frightening. Dacey isprimarily concerned with avoiding probate costs and his publication is onlysecondarily concerned with the devolution of property or the security ofone's family. Although an ill-conceived estate plan can be the cause of unneces-sary federal estate tax payments far in excess of the most outrageous probatecharges, there is virtually no tax guidance in this chronicle.Probate has a purpose. It gives creditors the opportunity to collect theirdebts. Heirs are assured of receiving their rightful legacy. The estate assetsare protected from improper use of investment. Dacey's trusts will not eliminateall or even most of the necessary costs involved in the post-death administrationof an estate. Taxes must still be computed and paid, disputes must be resolved,creditors must be paid, titles must be cleared, and assets must be traced. These"probate-type expenses" will not be erased by merely drafting a trust document.A basic estate planning tool is the use of marital deduction and residuarytrusts to protect the heirs and reduce estate taxes. Yet, Dacey virtually skipsover the marital deduction. Only a small minority of the myriad of trusts hewould have one create make use of this elementary tax saving device. Al-though Dacey claims that his notebook is not particularly concerned withtaxes, he lists probate fees for estates ranging from $50,000 to $10,000,000. Taxplanning should be part of estate planning for any married person with a netestate in excess of $120,000.Assume a man leaves $200,000 to his wife in a living trust and at the timeof her death, the same $200,000 is passed on to her children. The failure touse a properly constructed marital deduction and residuary trust could costthis family over $27,000 in unnecessary estate tax payments while in Illinoisthe total estimated probate costs for these two estates would be approximately

Capote:  In Cold Blood

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